O glotonye, ful of cursednesse!
O cause first of oure confusioun!
O original of oure dampnacioun,
Til Crist hadde boght us with his blood agayn!
Lo, how deere, shortly for to sayn,
Aboght was thilke cursed vileynye!
Corrupt was al this world for glotonye.
– Geoffrey Chaucer
The Canterbury Tales, The Pardoner’s Tale. It is hypocritical and ironic for the Pardoner to strongly condemn gluttony, being under the influence of strong ale himself during the telling of his tale. The Pardoner views this sin as the first cause of mankind’s ruin and damnation, when Eve succumbed to her hunger for the apple from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden in the Christian Bible story. Jesus as a result had to redeem mankind through his death and blood.